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ARTICLE I-THE INFLUENCE OF THE CRUSADES UPON EUROPEAN LITERATURE. IN all ages of the world the conquests of war have received honor and glory. In this present nineteenth century the triumphs of commerce are the praise of the civilized world. Yet through war as well as through commerce are exchanges made; and valuable commodities, from unseen treasure chambers, pass between the combatants, and remain as memorials of past warfare. Behind the material splendors of victory, there hide subtle, and yet more permanent glories of spiritual conquest, and the subjugation of new intellectual domains. The kingdom of knowledge is enlarged and made more universal; and allies and vassals of different races minister to the tastes and necessities of their new masters. The old wars of the Romans and Carthaginians, of the Romans and Britons and Gauls, brought knowledge in their train, but the commerce of mind, the enriching merchandise of literature, and the fact that the souls of opponents grow opulent by exchange, was splendidly illustrated by the wars of the Crusades. We say merchandise, and use the word not merely in its present meaning, but also as Comines used it, signifying a "negotiation, a friendly reciprocity between princes." These wars of the Crusades which extended over many years, and renewed by different generations, left five millions of men buried on the hills and plains of Asia, made the Orient and the Occident acquainted; nay more, they brought about an exchange of ideas, of habits, of civilization, and even of language. These wars at the time seemed an unmitigated calamity. Such waste of energy, such waste of spiritual love and passion, such waste of life and blood and treasure, to accomplish so little, was never seen. But enthusiasm and heroism are never wasted. God is never prodigal of courage, of virtue, of sacrifice, but to secure ultimate good. It was the isolation of nations from each other throughout Europe, that produced the barbarism of the Dark Ages, and with intercourse, though of a warlike kind, came intelligence, liberality, politeness, generosity, and honor. The nations who fought each other acquired mutual respect and admiration for each other. The Musselman infidels were more courteous and refined than the Christian knights. Their delicious climate, their luxury of dress and life, their tents, their horse-trappings, and, above all, their gorgeous architecture, and their love of science and song, opened the eyes of the Crusaders to the superiority of the Saracens. When Richard Coeur de Lion from England, and Saladin the Saracen from Arabia, met and exchanged knightly courtesy, and afterward matched the English battle-axe against the Damascene scimetar, to show what each could do with the weapons of his country, it was a merchandise, a negotiation of princes, also a commerce and exchange of knowledge and experience. And the influence of the crusades upon the invaders is especially marked in the literature that broke out into flame all over Europe, after the painful physical struggle of the Crusade wars was over, and comparative peace and rest gave opportu nity for culture and enjoyment. It will be of importance to show first the condition of Civilization in Arabia and her dependencies, at this time, and afterward to allude to the Barbarism of Europe, that one may better understand the source and strength of the imported wine of knowledge which woke new life in the thin, cold, northern veins. Rome had been conquered and devastated by the Goths and Huns under Alaric and Attila. The Latin language had become debased by the conquerors, and was barba rous and provincial. Vulgar dialects of conquered nations, indifferent to literature, and careless of bequeathed treasures of art, usurped its place, when Mahomet began his wars of conquest. When he finished his course of fire and sword, the Empire of the Caliphs had spread East and West. It possessed the East, the country of the Magi and Chaldeans where the star of the East arose, whence the first light of literature had shone over the earth. It held fertile Egypt with its temples of science, its magicians and priests, and the storehouses of the Pharaohs against famine of all sorts. It owned Asia Minor with her gorgeous cities, beautiful and terrible to see; that fair smiling land of the fig and the orange, the peach and the almond; it penetrated the burning plains of Africa, the land of eloquence and subtle intellect. Mahomet's flight from Mecca to Medina, which is called the Hegira, corresponds with the year 622 of our era, and the library of Alexandria was said to to have been burnt by Amrou, the General of the Caliph Omar in 641. Ali, the fourth Caliph from Mahomet, began to protect letters. His rival and successor, Moahwihah of the dynasty of the Onomiades, did more for them, but hardly a century from the time of the barbarian outrage on the Alexandrian library, the family of the Abbassides, who mounted the throne of the Caliphs in 750, introduced a passionate love of art, of science, and of poetry. This was the age in Arabia which corresponds in brilliancy to the age of Pericles in Greece, the Augustan age in Rome, to the time of the Medici in Italy and the Elizebethan period in England,—perhaps the time of Louis fourteenth in France. Haroun al Raschid acquired a glorious name by his love for letters. The historian Elmacin assures us that he never undertook a journey without carrying with him at least a hundred men of science in his train. He never built a mosque without attaching a school to it, a custom which the Roman Catholics emulate in our day. His successors followed his example, and thus was built a chain of academies which stretched all along the Mediterranean shore. His son, Al Mamoun, carried his father's enthusiasm to a yet greater fervor. Masters, translators, and commentators formed his court, which seemed rather a learned academy than the seat of government in a warlike |